This is kind of breaking news. As you say, we’re just hearing it. We haven’t been formally advised, but we have it on relatively good authority. And this would be what they call the nuclear option. This would be we can’t do it with 60 votes, because now we have a new Senator from Massachusetts, so we’ll do it with 51. Now it’s called the nuclear option, because it really upsets all of the tradition and precedent within the Senate which on a really big bill on the magnitude of health care, would always have strong bipartisan support, and therefore the 60 vote requirement really doesn’t matter.

They’ve learned nothing from the election of Scott Brown, and their other setbacks.

Basically, a bunch of children gave testimony that the Amirault family abused and sexually assaulted children at a highly-regarded day care that they ran. But there was never any evidence of any crime, just the testimony of children.

Other than such testimony, the prosecutors had no shred of physical or other proof that could remotely pass as evidence of abuse. But they did have the power of their challenge to jurors: Convict the Amiraults to make sure the battle against child abuse went forward. Convict, so as not to reject the children who had bravely come forward with charges.

Gerald was sent to prison for 30 to 40 years, his mother and sister sentenced to eight to 20 years. The prosecutors celebrated what they called, at the time “a model, multidisciplinary prosecution.” Gerald’s wife, Patricia, and their three children—the family unfailingly devoted to him—went on with their lives. They spoke to him nightly and cherished such hope as they could find, that he would be restored to them.

Eventually, the convictions for the women were reversed, but the man remained a prisoner. Then Martha Coakley took over as the new Middlesex County district attorney in 1999. And here is what she did.

In the face of the increasing furor surrounding the case, Ms. Coakley agreed to revise and revoke her sentence to time served—but certain things had to be clear, she told the press. Cheryl’s case, and that of Gerald, she explained, had nothing to do with one another—a startling proposition given the horrific abuse charges, identical in nature, of which all three of the Amiraults had been convicted.

No matter: When women were involved in such cases, the district attorney explained, it was usually because of the presence of “a primary male offender.” According to Ms. Coakley’s scenario, it was Gerald who had dragged his mother and sister along. Every statement she made now about Gerald reflected the same view, and the determination that he never go free. No one better exemplified the mindset and will of the prosecutors who originally had brought this case.

Before agreeing to revise Cheryl’s sentence to time served, Ms. Coakley asked the Amiraults’ attorney, James Sultan, to pledge—in exchange—that he would stop representing Gerald and undertake no further legal action on his behalf. She had evidently concluded that with Sultan gone—Sultan, whose mastery of the case was complete—any further effort by Gerald to win freedom would be doomed. Mr. Sultan, of course, refused.

Eventually Gerald was also released following a 5-0 parole board ruling. But Martha Coakley was not finished.

District Attorney Coakley was not idle either, and quickly set about organizing the parents and children in the case, bringing them to meetings with Acting Gov. Jane Swift, to persuade her to reject the board’s ruling. Ms. Coakley also worked the press, setting up a special interview so that the now adult accusers could tell reporters, once more, of the tortures they had suffered at the hands of the Amiraults, and of their panic at the prospect of Gerald going free.

On Feb. 20, 2002, six months after the Board of Pardons issued its findings, the governor denied Gerald’s commutation.

Gerald Amirault spent nearly two years more in prison before being granted parole in 2004. He would be released, with conditions not quite approximating that of a free man. He was declared a level three sex offender—among the consequences of his refusal, like that of his mother and sister, to “take responsibility” by confessing his crimes. He is required to wear, at all times, an electronic tracking device; to report, in a notebook, each time he leaves the house and returns; to obey a curfew confining him to his home between 11:30 p.m. and 6 a.m. He may not travel at all through certain areas (presumably those where his alleged victims live). He can, under these circumstances, find no regular employment.

So, even if the facts are not there, a message needs to be sent to men that they are filthy perverts and need to be kept clear of children. And if an innocent man has to go to prison to “prove” the anti-male prejudices of radical feminists to the watching world, then so be it.

Ken Pittman: Right, if you are a Catholic, and believe what the Pope teaches that any form of birth control is a sin. Ah you don’t want to do that.

Martha Coakley: No, we have a separation of church and state Ken, lets be clear.

Ken Pittman: In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom.

Martha Coakley: The law says that people are allowed to have that. You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.

At another point in the interview she says, “if people believe that they don’t want to provide services that are required under the law and under Roe v. Wade, that they can individually decide to not follow the law, the answer is no.”

I find her willingness to squash the religious beliefs of individuals with her secular leftist support for abortion very disturbing. Why should she have the right to force her anti-Christian view on me? And why does she label herself as a Roman Catholic? She trying to use the power of the state to force pro-lifers to commit murder. How is that consistent with Roman Catholicism? (Or evangelical Protestant Christianity?)